“A woman looks for her place in New York City as she contemplates the meaning of “home.”

The City Odes Project is a passion project in which my composer and I will collaborate with a poet and an actor to create a humanist, emotional, and visual story amidst the backdrop of a particularly city. “In Between Words” is the first of many to come, and kicks off this series in the city I currently reside in – New York City. The narrative was birthed out of an eagerness to collaborate with Achiaa, my actress, who now lives in New York and is originally from Ghana. In speaking with her, I decided to pursue a story about someone searching for home; a woman who is figuring out if NYC is the place for her, who is coming to terms that she is 5,000 miles away from her original home in West Africa, and thus easing out tensions with her mother, who of course wants her to return. The final result here features the work of Lilian Mehrel – a fellow filmmaker and classmate of mine back at NYU Grad Film school – who captures these feelings through her words, and my frequent collaborator John Corlis – an LA-based musician and composer – who complements the poetry with his mixture of piano and strings.”

“In Between Words” by Lilian Mehrei

Where am I?Check the map. What’s a map, anyway? An alphabet. Spelling out spacesIn between words.

When you carve lines in a concrete jungle,The dust particles remain. They stainThe people with gritGlittering their teeth.

When I was little, my mother told meMy great-grandfather was the head of our tribe.What’s a tribe? I asked.He was like the king of our village, she told me.Are you the queen now? I asked.

Yes Queen, says a handsome woman walking by.

Excuse me, do you know which way is north?I squint up at the scrapers of the sky. They look down at their fireflies.

My eyes blink for a rest. I need to goUnderground.I enter the arteries To flow with bodies as one.Noon or midnight, there is no time here.

I balance, suspended halfway Between North and South.There is no fullness,There is no stillness.

I cross the street. I cross my heart.I cross my mother, one too many times.Why don’t you come home? She says.What is home? I say.There are too many people there, she says.There’s nobody to bother me, I say.

When it’s too muchI slip in the small spaces.

Can you find me on a map?Look, there – that eyelash that fell,Between 6th and 7th avenue, that’s me.

Where are you? My mother calls me.I’m on 6th and a half avenue, I say.What?

“Travel magazine Wideoyster presents a poetry film about New York. Ode To New York by Walt Whitman. A poetry video we made for travel magazine WideOyster.
The poem Give Me The Splendid Silent Sun was published in 1865, but Whitmans sharp-witted observations of the city are, perhaps, even more relevant today than when the poem was written.

Walt loved New York. Even though at the time it was a tough city to live in. He felt energized instead of overwhelmed by its constant motion, heard music instead of madness, and saw humanity instead of strangeness in its crowds.”

You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may tread me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wellsPumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops.Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold minesDiggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I’ve got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.

“The poem “Fifth Avenue” is part of Hasan’s recently published collection of Urdu and Punjabi poetry. Koel Shehr Ki Katha, released this year by Saanjh Publications Lahore, Pakistan.

The poem recounts one summer day when, sitting on 5th avenue in Manhattan, Hasan witnessed a parade of Hare Krishna devotees making their way down the avenue.Amongst them, he saw a man who looked like Allen Ginsberg — one of Hasan’s favorite American poets.Though it was not him, the sight of this lookalike gave Hasan an important thought.If this American poet once journeyed to India in search of inspiration, why could Hasan, a Pakistani, not come to America and likewise find some spark of beauty to write from.Hence began his journey to create this singular collection of poetry that fuses his new home with images of that which he left behind.”

Excerpts from “Koel Shehr Ki Katha/Tale Of A Cuckoo’s City” by Hasan Mujtaba

“NEW BEGINNINGS” is a cinematic promotional short film for the
New York City Ballet productions that opened on September 12, 2013. Filmed at sunrise on the 57th floor of 4WTC in lower Manhattan, this short film directed by Davi Russo captures an extraordinary and moving performance of Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain”.

Directed by: Davi Russo

Music Composed by: Avro Part (“Spiegel Im Spiegel”)

Choreography by: Christopher Wheeldon (“After the Rain”)

Dancers: Maria Kowroski & Ask la Cour

Edited by Tim Zeigler
Produced by Radical Media
Executive Produced by Gregg Carlesimo
Executive Produced by Maya Brewster
Produced by Logan Luchsinger

It is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, and a tribute to the future of the city that New York City Ballet calls home. #newbeginnings

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An Important Emerging Creative Short Film Genre.

"...underneath the young gray dawn,
a multitude of dense, white fleecy clouds,
were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind." From "Prometheus Unbound" by Percy Bysshe Shelley